Spiderweb
by winter machine
Summary: "You won't ever forget the way the hem of your blouse felt in your hands that night, so close to tearing at the seams."  Addison, Derek, Mark, and a life of chances never taken.  AU, based on a prompt.


**Spiderweb**

* * *

><p>In life, of course, there are certain moments that crystallize. They stand out, unforgettable. Strung together with all that comes in between, they make up a life.<p>

Then there's marriage. After a decade, two decades, the moments have grown together in a spiderweb so complex it gets harder and harder to differentiate one from the next.

It's a life of separation and sameness all at once, forks resting the same way in the silverware drawer, bodies spooned neatly in a sweeping sleigh bed. The baby you plan for. The one you don't. The tinkling sounds of laughter and the fierce rage of fights and small, sticky fingerprints ruining things you didn't even know you cared about.

There's little time for evaluation, for introspection. Maybe that's the point. Maybe then you would think too much about the moments that could have changed everything. The chances not taken, the words not spoken. Not the obvious ones - the things you said, and did: _Yes, _to a proposal. Deciding to go to medical school. Agreeing to have a child.

There are the smaller ones. Turning over instead of melting into an embrace. Choosing to interpret a murky look as indecision instead of pain. Standing in front of a mirror in a dimly lit bathroom, seconds away from changing into something more comfortable, and deciding against it at the last moment. You won't ever forget the way the hem of your blouse felt in your hands that night, so close to tearing at the seams. So close to falling apart.

_You should go home._

_You sure?_

_Yeah. _

You fill your house with antiques and then hide them when the babies start walking. What is a spiderweb, after all, but a beautiful trap?

* * *

><p>Maybe he won't say anything.<p>

She's slept inches from him for a third of her life. His children grew inside of her. He sits beside her on the couch, on her left - always on her left. She looks down at his bare feet on the floorboards, the familiar way his toes curl against the fringes of the persian rug. Silently, she wills him not to say anything, hoping he will hear what she doesn't say better than he does her spoken words.

He doesn't.

"I can't believe Mark's really moving to LA," Derek muses. "He hates California."

"Lots of plastics work out there," Addison mumbles. She leans forward, letting a curtain of red hair hide her face. She used to fear she was too obvious, when she felt something, but then she realized Derek usually wasn't looking that closely.

Not even when she wanted him to.

"You don't sound that surprised," he observes.

Mark stopped surprising her years ago.

_If you really want me to leave, I will._

_I need you to leave._

_That's not what I asked._

_Please..._

_I'll leave, then. My way. _

"Derek..." she looked up, tucking her hair behind her ears, at his retreating back.

"Yeah?" He half turns and she swallows. They used to fight about this, long ago. _You want me to talk to you and when I do you don't even say anything!_

"He'll, uh, he'll visit, I'm sure," she says lamely.

He gives her a brief nod.

She pushes him gently back when he leans over her later that night, moonlight illuminating the intent in his eyes. He stills the hand already trailing over her waist and rolls away from her.

After a few moments of silence broken only by the steady breathing audible from the monitor (Ellie's outgrown it, really, but Addison's not quite ready to turn it off) he says, carefully, "It's been a while."

"I'm tired, Derek."

"Addie..."

She turns over, trying to ignore the tears pricking at her eyes. She feels his hand on her hair, brushing it away from her flushed face.

"What's the matter?" He sounds almost amused, as he often does by her tears. As usual, it bothers her in a way she can't quite identify.

"Nothing."

"Really, Addison." Now he sounds disapproving. His fingers run lightly over the moisture on her cheeks. "You'd think it was _your_ best friend leaving town."

* * *

><p>He surprises her, after all. He visits.<p>

A long weekend. They fill the house with everyone else who wants to see him, and she's relieved. The girls hurl themselves at him and he hoists them up together, making them laugh with his scratchy cheeks.

"Let Uncle Mark sit down for a second." Derek claps him heartily on the shoulder. Addison, leaning against the louvre doors, watches silently. Eleanor runs to her and Addison smoothes her dark hair.

He tells them about sunshine and beaches, gives the girls plastic shakers of sand, a straw hat for each that makes them laugh. "Come and visit me," he says. "I miss you."

"Can we, Mommy?" Lucy, the elder and spokeswoman. "Can we visit?"

"We'll see." Addison moves a water glass away from Ellie's enthusiastic gesture. "Elbows off the table, honey."

He's staying in a hotel, having rebuffed multiple Shepherd offers of accommodation. Amy leaves with him - her apartment is in the same direction, she says, but Addison sees something like intent in those familiar blue eyes and has to look away.

_You've made your bed._

She has the girls make their own beds. They're not very good at it, and Eva would do a far better job, but she insists. She has the thought that it will make them self-sufficient and hardy instead of spoiled urban creatures.

She thinks a lot of things.

"Derek?"

"Yeah?" They're clearing up the detritus of the evening, having given Sonia the day off to spend with her family. Addison's wearing the apron that was a half-joke gift, multiple strands escaping the clip in her hair. They're not talking, much, except when Derek lifts up an object with a half-raised eyebrow and she gestures to its appropriate resting place. Lucy and Eleanor are sleeping in the second-floor den, curled up against each other like puppies. It's very quiet in that distinct post-party way, the windows wide open to the early-fall breeze.

"Do you think people who take chances are happier?"

He cocks his head at her as she passes him a wine glass. "Uh. It's not something I've really thought about."

A canape tray and two glass pitchers later, when she still hasn't said anything he asks: "What about you?" He's holding a wooden serving fork. It makes him look emphatic but she realizes he just doesn't know where to put it.

She shrugs. "Same. I don't think about it that often either." She takes the utensil from his hand and closes it in the drawer with all the others just like it.

* * *

><p><strong>From an FMS prompt this summer: Addison never slept with Mark, Amelia wasn't an addict, Addek had babies, they all lived in New York and everyone was fine, except that they weren't. <strong>


End file.
